Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street Leaves Blizzard Entertainment

[Arrogancy]

Seriously though WoW..I'm starting to doubt it can be saved. They're more or less hittled the game down to a cor e devoted fanbase that will frankly , support anything they do so long as they get a new pet or mount drop. I suspect by the next expack most of the over world will be gone and the capital cities will just be lobbies for cueing for raids, dungeons and bg's...

Yes, that "core devoted fanbase" that comprises, what, 10 million people? 13 million? I don't play WoW, and yes, I'm aware that they have been losing subscribers, but they're nowhere near danger of fading. Hell, the new expansion seems to be recapturing some of their lost market if what I've heard is any indication.

 

[Zing]

Seriously though WoW..I'm starting to doubt it can be saved. They're more or less hittled the game down to a cor e devoted fanbase that will frankly , support anything they do so long as they get a new pet or mount drop. I suspect by the next expack most of the over world will be gone and the capital cities will just be lobbies for cueing for raids, dungeons and bg's...

Yes, that "core devoted fanbase" that comprises, what, 10 million people? 13 million? I don't play WoW, and yes, I'm aware that they have been losing subscribers, but they're nowhere near danger of fading. Hell, the new expansion seems to be recapturing some of their lost market if what I've heard is any indication.

The number is down to 7.6 million actually. A far cry from its peak of 12 million. And there's been no increase since the announcement of WOD(at least not that they've said yet anyway), earlier this month they just announced they were down another 100,000 subs.

They are definitely taking steps to keep players for sure. But regardless it will probably fade quite a bit more, but still remain profitable. Even if it levels off at like 2-3 million players it's still millions more than any other MMO so far.

 

[Agente L]

I will miss him. I enjoyed his articles and his balance mentality. Unfortunaly, balancing 11 classes, 34 specs, 198 talents and hundreds of skills is pretty much an impossible job. But he did all his could. It's hard not to hit some classe with the nerf bat too hard some times.

 

[faefrost]

I rarely agreed with his design choices and decisions. But I gotta respect him for communicating them, and laying it all out for the fans to read.

 

[Sean951]

Under the old talent system I was pretty much stuck using whatever talent tree setup was deemed "best" for Balance Druids, as was every other Balance Druid. Under the current system I'm able to change my talents on a fight per fight basis depending on what boss, how many adds etc.

The old system was basically a choice between PvE build, PvP build and "doing worse than people who are using the best build" build. Such flexibility...

Well mid Wrath I experimented with a Ret/Holy paladin and did fairly well in arenas and battlegrounds. Spec'd all the way down to get replenishment and repentance and spent the rest to get holy shock. That was customization and experimentation. You could fill a niche for certain encounters even if that meant crippling yourself in others. The new three point talent tree doesn't do customization well. You do the same thing, just slightly differently.

For examples on a Warrior you either have a regular CD charge with 2 uses or just have a charge with a shorter cooldown...Not huge game changers. Also, how many warriors do you see using Enraged Regeneration over Second Wind or Impending Victory?

On a positive note I will say that being able to change single talents instead of wiping everything is a big plus.

That build is called "Shockadin" and was all the rage in BC. It was still considered OK for parts of Wrath, since it offered some utility, but you were better off going pure Holy or Ret.

 

[Robert Mahoney]

God Rest Ye Merry Ghostcrawler: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaDuyIqGhpE

 

[tehroc]

I will miss him. I enjoyed his articles and his balance mentality. Unfortunaly, balancing 11 classes, 34 specs, 198 talents and hundreds of skills is pretty much an impossible job. But he did all his could. It's hard not to hit some classe with the nerf bat too hard some times.

Actually it's not that hard to balance classes, TF2 has it down. They never intended for there to be balance, flavor of the month class balancing was just another carrot to dangle in front of players. Just another way to artificially lengthen subscription terms.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

I just love how people hate on him for being the PR voice of the design team as if he controlled everything they did and was solely responsible for x-nerf or y-bug or z-op'd class... I feel he deserves commendation for lasting as long as he did without freaking out on the community for being jackasses.

 

[Agente L]

I will miss him. I enjoyed his articles and his balance mentality. Unfortunaly, balancing 11 classes, 34 specs, 198 talents and hundreds of skills is pretty much an impossible job. But he did all his could. It's hard not to hit some classe with the nerf bat too hard some times.

Actually it's not that hard to balance classes, TF2 has it down. They never intended for there to be balance, flavor of the month class balancing was just another carrot to dangle in front of players. Just another way to artificially lengthen subscription terms.

If you are realy comparing the balance of a MMO with the balance of a team-based fps, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

Those two are so vastly different from each other that the only similarity they have are the existance of classes in both.